Wednesday, 30 July 2025

Department of Parliamentary Services

Report 2023–24

Sonja TERPSTRA (North-Eastern Metropolitan) (17:34): I rise to make a statement on a report, and today I want to focus on workplace relations. But as the parliamentary proceedings dictate, I must speak on a report tabled in this house. So for these purposes, I wish to speak today on the Department of Parliamentary Services annual report 2023–24. The report from the Parliament of Victoria outlines a year focused on consolidation and strengthening democracy. There are a range of other highlights as well, but for my purposes today, I am going to just focus in on the workplace environment. In this case it is DPS, but it could quite easily be any other public service agency or organisation. The principles or ideas in terms of diversity will easily apply to many.

Many white-collar organisations pride themselves on offering inclusive, safe and diverse workplaces. And yet, whilst there is detailed and well-intentioned work going on inside these organisations, often the stated policies miss the mark, particularly when it comes to intersectionality. A quick scan of DPS diversity policies reveals that the word ‘class’, for example, is not recognised as an intersectional issue anywhere within those policies. For example, the DPS annual report speaks about offering a contemporary workplace that offers a modern forward-thinking workplace that provides a safe and flexible environment for all staff and employees to be their best selves and also an engaged and valued workforce where employees will feel empowered and confident and made to feel their contribution is valued.

When we look around other public service organisations, do we really see diversity? Are these values really engaged? Are there Indigenous people, people of colour, people with disability and people with neurodiversity employed amongst its ranks, or is it populated by Melbourne University educated workers and the like? Gone are the days when a young public service employee could start out in the mailroom and work their way up through the ranks of the organisation and nary a qualification was required. While some might scoff at this practice, it actually provided pathways for working-class kids to gain access to well-paid and secure work.

This leads me to what I want to discuss today, which I just touched on briefly, which is an intersectional issue that is about gender and class. We are all defined by multiple interconnected aspects of our identities. It is not just about being a woman, being from a working-class background, being a person of colour, having a disability or being neurodiverse; it is about how these different facets of who we are combine to shape our lives and intersect with the world. The theory urges us to move beyond what is called single-axis thinking, requiring us to look beyond one form of discrimination or isolation. For example, if were just discussing gender equality in the workplace, a single-axis approach might focus solely on the challenges faced by women, but an intersectional approach would ask: are all women experiencing the same challenges within that organisation? A woman of colour and a woman of a different class background, for instance, might face not only sexism but also subtle forms of racism and microaggression that a white woman may not face. These experiences are not simply additive; they are intertwined, creating a distinct and often more profound set of hurdles. Her passion and expressionism can be often seen by ruling-class people as challenging, difficult or hostile, which of course they are not.

But upper-class cultural norms put women from a different class background at a true disadvantage. Are workplaces populated with people intent on rendering microaggressions at one another, fakeness or toxic positivity in a work environment full of moral thought police? In essence, the double bind means that for working-class women their gender and class identity combine to create a unique set of pressures. They face the general challenges of being a woman in professional environments and specific biases and disadvantages stemming from their class background. It makes it difficult to navigate professional spaces. Their interactions are often misinterpreted; burnout can occur and also slower career progression, and these are only surface level. Attention is given to these issues, but it misses the apparent biases that operate on the intersectionality of identity.

There are two more examples with conflicting expectations of professionalism. Women from a different class background might be expected to embody certain professional norms – for example, communication styles, networking etiquette or social graces – that are often implicitly aligned with middle-class or upper-class cultural capital. If they do not naturally possess these attributes, they might be perceived as less competent. Then of course there is underestimation of their ambition. While they might be ambitious but unable to express themselves in a similar manner to those in the upper-class cohorts, their resilience and hard work can be misinterpreted in favour of perceived natural fit: do they not naturally fit? In essence, the double bind is that these women face contradictory expectations of disadvantage due to the combined impact of their gender and socio-economic class.